


Sketches of her Soul

by cornchipmeteor



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Art, F/F, Healing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6231742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cornchipmeteor/pseuds/cornchipmeteor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Clarke held the dark charcoal in her hand, she couldn’t believe that the ground only held pain. </p><p>Or</p><p>Lexa keeps giving Clarke gifts, and Clarke's drawings help them heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sketches of her Soul

**Author's Note:**

> In the aftermath of 3x07, I needed to write something in the canon-verse where these two are happy (i.e. not dead). I also tried out a slightly different writing style than I have been using. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Find me on Tumblr if you like (cornchipmeteor).

It all started with clean clothes.

A servant had delivered them to her room--which had felt like a prison cell, at the time--in a neat bundle. Two shirts, two pairs of pants, and undergarments the likes of which Clarke had never seen before. They were more like shorts, realy. Despite their strangeness, they were still comfortable.

Of course, it had taken Clarke a few days to start wearing any of the new clothes Lexa had given her. Wearing them felt like she was accepting her detention there. 

How quickly things changed. 

She had long ago thrown out the tattered rags that she had been wearing for three straight months. There was no reason to keep them, even though they were the only thing that she still had from the Ark.

Besides the gun. But that was locked in a chest under her bed. She didn’t like to think about that. 

When Clarke wore the new shirt and pants into Lexa’s throne room, Lexa glanced down at her only briefly, showing no emotion.

“Polis fashion suits you, Clarke.”

Clarke had ignored the compliment. “Prisoners don't have much of a choice in what they wear.”

Still, Lexa's comment revealed who had given her the clothes. She had chosen them for her, the color and the style and the size, even if she wouldn't admit it. 

Three days passed until the next gift: a flowing blue dress that was more extravagant than anything that Clarke had ever owned before. That, she hadn't been expecting. Her opinions about Lexa were still as muddled as ever, but still, she couldn’t help but try the dress on. 

It fit perfectly. And the blue matched her eyes. Clarke knew, because she glanced at herself for a split-second in the mirror in the corner of her room. 

It was the first time she had looked at herself in over three months, and she turned away almost immediately. It reminded her too much of the girl she had been back on the Ark, before all of _this_ had happened. She feared that her eyes would reflect the emptiness that she felt. 

That night, she had been unable to sleep. The cool breeze flowing in through the window had the oddest scent, different from what she had come to associate with the earth and trees and rivers, but she couldn’t place it. But she thought it matched the longing that filled her chest. If only she knew what she was longing for. 

The blue fabric fluttered against her skin, foreign yet comforting. 

Lexa had visited her that night. It wasn’t the first time they had been alone since everything had happened, but it felt like it: the tiny needles in the pit of Clarke’s stomach; the over-awareness of her own breathing; realizing that the more she tried to ignore the glimpses of Lexa’s legs that her dress provided, the more she stared.

Clarke’s hand had betrayed her when it took Lexa’s, bringing them closer, more intimate. Clarke had come up with the excuse about tending Lexa’s wound, but she wondered why she hadn't been able to stop herself from touching her. Clarke vaguely registered what had happened to her the last time someone had tended her wounds, but she pushed that thought roughly out of her mind. 

Too much had happened. There was too much history. Niylah had been quick, had made her feel something. But Lexa… it wouldn't be that way with Lexa. 

Not that she wanted that to happen, anyway. 

When Lexa smiled at her--really smiled at her, which had been so rare before the Mountain but was becoming a daily occurrence--Clarke had had to end it. She couldn't handle one of Lexa's smiles, not now, not with her hair pulled over her shoulder and her make up gone and her heart so exposed that even the simmering rage and hurt that Clarke had clung onto for so long slipped from her grasp.

“Reshop, Heda,” Clarke had said, desperate to regain control of herself.

“Goodnight, Ambassador.” 

Clarke told herself that the walls she had constructed after the Mountain would hold, no matter how soft and genuine Lexa’s smile had been.

Still, Clarke couldn’t take her eyes off of her when she walked out of her room. She hadn’t even bothered to pretend that she hadn’t been watching her when Lexa turned her head. What was the point--Clarke was sure that the Commander of the Twelve (Thirteen?) Clans knew when someone was watching her. 

Clarke hadn’t been able to sleep much that night either, but it had been different than before.

When she returned to her room the next day after endless hours of meetings and political posturing, Clarke found the third gift waiting for her in a small package on her bed: soap. 

Clarke had almost laughed, but it was harder for her to do that these days.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t washed herself--she had--but she had been using the same soap that she had purchased while out on her own in Trikru territory. She had gone without food for two days to be able to afford it. Clarke didn’t want to waste it, after it had cost her so much to acquire in the first place. 

But Clarke couldn’t resist this. The soaps were labeled with pictures: one with what she recognized as a rose flower from her Earth Skills class, even though she had never seen one in real life. The other was a purple flower, the name of which escaped her. (She tried to push away the thought that Wells would have known. Even Finn may have known. But neither of them could share what they knew now.) The last bar of soap only had an image of an oblong green leaf, but when she smelled it, her nose tingled and she felt instantly awake.

She had the handmaidens fill her tub with scalding hot water and soaked in it until her skin was soft and wrinkled. She still didn’t feel comfortable asking the handmaidens for help, but she accepted that this was her life now.

The next day, when Clarke walked past Lexa in the throne room, she thought she saw the tiniest hint of a smile play across the Commander’s face. 

Clarke had bathed with the purple flower soap. She didn’t think she had ever smelled so good in her life. And evidently, she wasn’t the only one to notice. 

Their lives became more difficult after that. Skaikru had elected Pike, and he wanted nothing to do with the Coalition. Not surprisingly, the clans wanted nothing to do with him either.

But still, Lexa helped her. True to her vow, Lexa continued to help her, despite Titus and Indra and the rest of the clans protesting the protection of murderers. Clarke knew that was what Skaikru were… she wasn’t stupid. But despite it all, she needed to protect them. They were still her people, even if they were proving themselves to be more barbaric than the enemy they claimed to fight. 

Even with the drama, the politics, the death hanging around their every move, still, there was another gift.

It was silly, but Clarke felt her eyes fill with tears. She had only cried once since Mt. Weather, and it had been when she had held that knife to Lexa’s throat, struggling to fight Lexa when the real battle was waging within herself. 

But this was different. It was nostalgia mixed with pain: sweet memories of her family when it was intact and loving and _good_ , but also the constriction of that tiny cell on the Ark and the foolish hope she had held for the ground. If only she had know the violence, the cruelty, that they would find there.

Or worse, the cruelty that she would find within herself.

But when Clarke held the dark charcoal in her hand, she couldn’t believe that the ground only held pain. 

She had mentioned her art to Lexa only once since she had been in Polis. They had been enjoying a rare moment without advisers and ambassadors and concerned citizens. They overlooked the city as the sky darkened. Black storm clouds crested the faraway hills and seemed to expand and dance right before their eyes. She had never seen anything quite like it before. 

“What are you thinking about?” Lexa asked softly by her side. Clarke could feel that her eyes were focused on her instead of the vibrant display on the horizon.

“Things change on the ground so quickly,” Clarke murmured, still transfixed by the display.

A flash inside the clouds was followed by a loud crack a moment later. This wasn’t the first thunderstorm Clarke had experienced, but this was the best view she had had of one by far. The next thunderclap was so strong that Clarke’s body vibrated.

“We saw these storms from space,” Clarke continued, not even knowing why she did. “We could see hundreds of them flashing all at once across the continents. But it’s so different seeing them here. They’re powerful. Violent, like so many things on the ground.”

Clarke turned to Lexa beside her, the woman’s hooded eyes staring at her intently. “And yet… I can’t help but think they’re beautiful, too.” 

“Not everything here changes so quickly, Clarke.” Lexa’s voice was soft, so soft that it was sometimes overtaken by the frequent thunder. “The storms pass, the rains fall, but the hills remain. The sun will still rise tomorrow. There are some things you can depend on.” 

Clarke had the distinct feeling that they were no longer talking about Earth. 

As difficult as it was, Clarke tore her eyes away from Lexa and gazed out onto the storm once again. “I wish I could draw this. I’d like to remember it.”

Clarke thought she felt Lexa’s hand brush against hers, but she couldn’t be sure. 

And just like that, less than a week later, two sticks of charcoal had appeared in Clarke’s room. Lexa certainly had more pressing matters to worry about, and yet… Clarke smiled at the thought. Her muscles strained with the unfamiliar movement. 

After that, Clarke's fingers were always smudged with black. Every break between advisors, every evening before she went to bed not knowing the struggles that she would face the next morning, Clarke drew. It was like her imagination had to make up for lost time and capture everything before it was too late. 

It started with nature. The trees, the flowers, the two-headed deer, horses running through the fields. 

But then there was the drop ship. Shallow mounds of soil, one after the other. A funeral pyre.

When she saw the door that sealed away Mount Weather appearing on the paper in front of her, she nearly threw the charcoal across the room. She never knew what she was drawing until the lines and shades began coalescing into an image, but this one had taken her by surprise. She didn’t finish it.

Later, she saw the door appearing on the paper again. This time, she kept sketching until it was done. That night, she threw it into the fireplace and watched it burn until the last ember was gone. 

The first sketch that Lexa found had been a complete accident. Clarke had been sitting at the table in the throne room, drawing a songbird that had alighted on the balcony. It could fly away at any time, but it chose to stay in the tower, singing, and Clarke was mesmerized. But then the messenger had stormed in, sharing more distressing news about Skaikru, and Clarke had had to focus on the matter at hand. 

Only hours later, when she and Lexa had returned to the throne room exhausted from the negotiations and planning, did Lexa see it. 

She stared at the drawing for a long time, while Clarke held her breath. 

But Lexa remained silent. And with a movement so fast that Clarke barely saw it, Lexa tucked the small piece of paper into her pocket.

After that, Clarke was more careless in where she left her drawings. It wasn’t that she was sketching for Lexa, but she happened to be leaving them in areas where Lexa--and Lexa alone--would be able to find them. 

The sun streaming through clouds like ribbons of light. A forest, still but for the dancing of shadows on the mossy ground. And one that Lexa wouldn’t be familiar with: the sunrise as seen from thousands of miles above the Earth, a gradual warming that erupts into a brightness that is unimaginable given the previous darkness. 

One day, as they were poring over maps for hours to assess the threat that Pike’s army and patrols posed, Lexa paused. She glanced down at Clarke’s charcoal-tinged hands, leaning on the table. 

“Do you need a basin, Clarke? Or soap? For your hands.”

Lexa was the image of seriousness, but Clarke wasn’t fooled.

“I just can’t get them clean,” Clarke offered, watching Lexa closely. “No matter how much soap I use.” 

“Curious.” Lexa returned her attention to the maps, but her lips curled upward despite how hard she was fighting it.

Clarke wished she would stop fighting so hard. 

That night, before Clarke went to sleep, and even though she had just spent the last ten minutes scrubbing her cuticles until they were spotless, she couldn’t resist picking up the charcoal once again. 

Soft brown curls off to one side, bouncing atop a strong shoulder. Eyes soft, despite the violence she had seen and inflicted and had inflicted on her. And that small smile, muscles that seemed unaccustomed to the motion but wanted nothing more than to be exercised more often.

This drawing, Clarke stored away in her desk. The thought of burning it like her other recent sketches made her stomach roil. 

A few days later, when ambassadors and Titus and it seemed everyone alive in Polis was protesting “blood must not have blood,” Lexa let out what could only be called a bark of a laugh. 

Every eye was on her. The guards’, the ambassadors’, and Titus’ most of all. 

Clarke wondered if they had ever heard their Heda laugh before. 

But to Lexa's credit, she recovered quickly, tucking the paper into her pocket and revealing only the slightest glimmer of mirth. 

Still, when Lexa locked her eyes on Clarke from across the room, there was so much amusement there that Clarke didn't think anyone in the room could possibly be fooled. 

Their Heda had a sense of humor. 

Clarke didn't even consider it to be her best work. It had been a comic of Aden and Clarke. A word bubble curled up from Aden, saying “Heda thinks--I mean I think--that you’re the greatest artist in the world, Clarke.’

But soon, Clarke learned the dangers of leaving comics around the throne room. 

Titus lifted up the paper, analyzing it critically. 

He glared at Clarke as he crumpled the paper in his hands. “I don't want her to kill everyone. Just Skaikru.” 

Titus paused, then added “And my nose is not that large.” 

Clarke had had to excuse herself to the restroom before her laughter overtook her.

After that, Clarke was more careful. And as the situation with Pike and the rest of his supporters escalated, she had less time to spend drawing. But at night, she would hesitate to blow out the candle at her bedside. She ignored the charcoal smudges on her sheets as she worked.

The sketch was always the same, although the emphasis each time was different.

Once, just of her neck, where it dipped as it met her chest. 

Another of just her eyes, dark with makeup but bright with wisdom. 

The next made Clarke's cheeks flush, even though she was the only one in the room and no one else would see it. 

Unless she chose to show it to Lexa one day. 

The thought made her heart race, probably from how ridiculous that would be, of course. They had plenty to deal with right now without Clarke complicating things. 

But that didn't stop her from pushing the boundaries. 

Clarke had approached Lexa's room cautiously. It was just down the hall from her own--in the entire tower, Lexa had given her a room so close that they were practically neighbors. She knew Lexa was meeting with the new Ice King, clinching fresh fealty after the debacle with the Queen. 

The two guards in front of Lexa's door just nodded at her as she walked past. She had expected more resistance but otherwise didn’t question it. 

She would never cease to be amazed by how soft the room was, especially at this time of day, with the morning sun streaming in through the windows. The Commander of the Blood, the one who had greeted her with a knife in her hand and anger in her eyes, also had a hundred candles strewn around the room and thick furs on her bed. 

Clarke gulped when she saw the bed. 

She had intended to leave the drawing on the desk, but she changed her mind. The drawing of Lexa standing with her back straight, hands held loosely behind her, looked much better on the pillow. 

After that, Clarke didn't hesitate to step into Lexa's room. She knew Lexa's schedule, sometimes better than her own. 

Or at least, that’s what she thought. 

“Clarke.”

Lexa’s voice rang out in her room, curious but also… proud. Like she had finally caught her. 

Clarke held the drawing behind her back as she turned to her. “Lexa, I…” 

She realized it was hard to come up with an excuse, when they both knew exactly why she was there. 

“What is it today?” Lexa asked, crossing the room and standing near Clarke. 

Too near Clarke. 

It was different, being there in her room. It wasn’t just that they were alone--truly alone--although that was a part of it. Clarke thought it might have something to do with the large, fur-covered bed just behind her.

Still, Clarke tried to reveal nothing, despite the smirk that she couldn’t conceal. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Heda.”

But she hadn’t been ready for Lexa to take another step forward. She was firmly in Clarke’s space now, and Clarke momentarily forgot how to breathe. 

But Lexa just reached past her, her arm seeming to ignite Clarke’s skin where they brushed together. She snatched the paper from Clarke’s hands behind her back and stared at the drawing for a long time.

“It's beautiful,” Lexa whispered, taken aback. 

Clarke shifted her weight to her other foot and tried to look anywhere but Lexa, but they were so close that it was impossible. And to be honest, she didn’t want to miss Lexa’s reaction to seeing herself on paper.

“Yeah, well…” Clarke struggled to find the right words. “I have a good subject.”

The tiny smile that Lexa gave her made it seem like it was the right thing to say.

“I was thinking….” Lexa hesitated. “Could you draw yourself next time?”

Clarke looked away. As it usually happened at the thought of drawing herself, panic seemed to fill her lungs instead of air. “I don’t think I can. I don't really like what I see there now.”

It had been so much easier to be angry, to pin all of her hurt and anguish and remorse on Lexa. It was hard to focus on anything. The metallic tang of the dead and dying filled her senses. The hopeless moans of those who knew their minutes were numbered were omnipresent, like the constant whir of insects in the height of summer. The shaking of heads and the glares of “how could you” met her everywhere she looked. 

But something warm, gentle, had taken her hand. She felt the slightest pressure there, and something rubbing back and forth, back and forth over her knuckles. 

Clarke looked down to see what it was. The visions of underground hallways littered with the bodies of her victims faded, fell away. Only Lexa’s hand holding her own remained. 

“Come back to me, Clarke.” 

A shaky breath filled her lungs. It was the smell of Lexa, not blood. It was home, not the battlefields of her own memories. It was understanding, not condemnation. 

When Clarke finally had the courage to look back into Lexa’s eyes, she was surprised to find that they were just as wet as her own.

“Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?” Lexa asked so softly that Clarke barely heard her over the fluttering of the curtains in the morning breeze. 

Clarke only nodded. She didn’t trust her voice.

Lexa’s other hand reached up to cup her cheek, and her thumb brushed away a tear that Clarke hadn’t even realized had fallen. 

“I see a woman who will do what's right for her people. A woman whose heart shows no sign of weakness. A woman who deserves to be loved.” A pause. “A woman _is_ loved.” 

Why should there be any physical distance between them, when there was none between their hearts? Clarke reached into Lexa’s hair and pulled her down softly, their lips touching, merging and flowing like rivers meeting together and becoming one. They held each other fiercely, as if this one connection could sustain them as the world fell away. And for all they knew, maybe it could. 

Time passed, and by the end of it, Clarke and Lexa were spread, exhausted and spent but satisfied under the fur sheets of Lexa’s bed. They had kissed away each other’s tears and shown each other time and again what it mean to be needed, to be appreciated, to be loved. 

It took Clarke a week to even try to draw herself, and another two weeks before she was able to finish it. But every attempt brought her one step closer to forgiveness. And every kiss from Lexa told her that the darkness of the past did not dim the brightness of their future.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and I hope these healing nerds brought you some peace as well! Please let me know if you enjoyed the story. I think I'll be writing more non-AU stuff in the days to come!


End file.
